TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN, GIRLS AND BOYS. KEY ISSUES FOR POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES ISBN:0-89714-676-X Report of the Consultative Meeting on Trafficking in Women and Children Bratislava, Slovak Republic 2-4 October 2002 UNFPA Consultative Meeting on Trafficking in Women and Children Bratislava, Slovakia 2-4 October 2002 FOREWORD Trafficking in persons, their transportation and sale for labour of any kind, whether within or outside national boundaries, is a modern form of slavery and a violation of the human rights of the victims. More than 700,000 persons are trafficked each year from one country to another, but the numbers are greatly magnified when in-country figures are taken into account. An overwhelming majority of victims are women, girls and boys. The primary objective is com- mercial sexual exploitation. While victims confront enormous harm to their sexual, reproductive and psy- chological health, their families and communities back home are made to suf- fer the negative effects upon their own health, their prospects for development and their human rights. The mandate of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) supports developing coun- tries in their efforts to improve access to quality sexual and reproductive health care, particularly family planning, safe motherhood, and the prevention of sex- ually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS. Because it also attempts to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, the act of trafficking in various types of labour—including commercial sexual exploita- tion—is viewed by the Fund as being in direct contravention of its goals and objectives. Giving expression to its concern, UNFPA organized a consultative meeting in Bratislava from 2-4 October 2002 to seek ways of addressing the problem. The present report is the outcome of this meeting. At this time, I would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to Kvinnoforum, the Swedish NGO, for its assistance in preparing this report as well as the background paper for the meeting. My thanks are also due to the following: Ms. Wariara Mbugua, Senior Technical Officer, UNFPA, for her excel- lent work in organizing this meeting; Mr. Dilli Prasad Bhattarai, for his prepara- tion of the Conceptual Framework for combating trafficking in women and chil- dren; Ms. Lettie Rose, for her efficient handling of the administrative activities, and Ms. Claudia Bogyaiova and other colleagues of the UNFPA CST team in Bratislava, for their efforts in helping to make this meeting a success. Mari Simonen, Director Technical Support Division UNFPA, New York i TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD..........................................................................................................................i ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................1 1. OPENING .................................................................................................................2 2. OVERVIEW - TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN, GIRLS AND BOYS ...............3 3. UNFPA’S ROLE IN THE PREVENTION OF TRAFFICKING .......................7 4. TRAFFICKING AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH.........................................11 4.1 Plenary session ............................................................................................11 4.2 Working group reports: Reproductive health services; A rights-based approach; Capacity building .....................................................................14 5. EMERGENCY, CONFLICT AND POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS AND TRAFFICKING ......................................................................................................19 5.1 Plenary session............................................................................................19 Working group reports: Conflict and emergency situation; Post-conflict and post-emergency situation ..................................................................21 6. TRAFFICKING , POPULATION-DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND POVERTY..............................................................................................................20 6.1 Plenary session...........................................................................................23 6.2 Working group reports..............................................................................24 7. TRAFFICKING AND ADVOCACY................................................................26 8. SUMMARY OF DISCUSSIONS AND CLOSING SESSION .....................29 9. ACTIONABLE PROPOSALS ............................................................................30 ii BOXES Box 1: UNFPA strategies for achieving gender equality: women’s empowerment and gender mainstreaming .......................................8 Box 2: Reproductive health services, problems and recommendations ...13 Box 3: Emergency, conflict and post-conflict situations, problems and recommendations...................................................................................20 Box 4:Trafficking, population-development strategy and poverty, problems and recommendations........................................................23 Box 5:Trafficking and advocacy, problems and recommendations ......28 APPENDICES “Trafficking in Women, Girls and Boys: Key Issues for Population and Devel- opment Programs,” Background Paper............................................33 iii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS CATW Coalition Against Trafficking in Women CCA Country Assessment CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination of Women CeLRRd Center for Legal Research and Resource Development CSSAT Community Surveillance System… CSO Civil Society Organisation GO Governmental Organisation ICPD International Conference on Population and Development (1994) IDP Internally Displaced Persons IEC Information, Education and Communication IOM International Organisation for Migration NGO Non-Governmental Organisations PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder SRHR Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights STD Sexually Transmitted Diseases STI Sexually Transmitted Infection UNFPA United Nations Population Fund WOTCLEF Women Trafficking and Children Labour Eradication Foundation WHO World Health Organization UNDAF UN Development Assistance Framework UNIFEM United Nations Fund for Women WFP World Food Programme iv EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Consultative Meeting on Trafficking in Women and Children was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, from 2 to 4 October 2002. The encounter brought togeth- er 60 participants from 30 countries, including government and NGO repre- sentatives, as well as key persons from UNFPA and other UN agencies. UNFPA’s concerns with this contemporary issue are rooted in the historic Programme of Action adopted in Cairo at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The complex trafficking issues are seen by the Fund as being directly related to the focus in the Programme of Action upon gender equality, women’s empowerment, violence against women, and reproductive health and rights. Trafficking in persons for the purpose of labour and commercial sexual exploitation is a modern form of slavery, according to Article 3 of United Nations Protocol 2000, which supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,1 adopted by the General Assembly in November 2000. (“The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children” has been signed by 80 countries.) The agreed definition was helpful to the participants at the Bratislava meeting as they pursued their agenda. At the outset, participants set the objectives they wished to achieve during their deliberations: building a common understanding of trafficking issues and their impact on reproductive health and rights; identifying approaches, meth- ods and good practices in tackling the issues; identifying UNFPA’s comparative advantages as well as possible partners for implementing actions at field level. The meeting framed trafficking as a gender and development problem, and much attention was devoted to the exploration of gender perspectives. The sit- uation facing children at risk was, therefore, discussed in terms of girls and boys; similarly, the gender of the traffickers was highlighted for the insights that might be revealed. The gendered dimension of poverty itself was viewed as an important reason for trafficking, notably because of the poverty-driven construct of ideas and attitudes regarding women and children that so easily permits their bodies to be turned into commodities. The meeting concluded that ‘partnership’ was a key word to be employed in the struggle against trafficking, and examples proposed were partnerships between UNFPA and other UN sister agencies, partnerships with governments, 1 UN Protocol 2000, Article 3: “Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having con- trol over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum,